


I Think Your Love Would Be Too Much

by orphan_account



Series: Sunflower Sketches [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Bisexual disaster Peter Parker, Domestic Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, POV Peter Parker, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is a Mess, Pining, Post-Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), sexual identity crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-18 22:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22467835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “This,” Peter says. “This is why the dinosaurs are extinct. Right here. They chose to die rather than evolve to the point where they had to talk about their feelings.”Or, the one where it takes Peter a little while to figure out where home is, but he gets there. Eventually.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Series: Sunflower Sketches [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616491
Comments: 16
Kudos: 139





	I Think Your Love Would Be Too Much

The trip from Peter’s apartment to the tower penthouse is a blur. Peter still feels as though his atoms are re-aligning themselves. Getting pulled through a vortex into an alternate reality and back will do that to you. His head is hazy, and his body feels like one constant glitch, and his lips are still kind of tingly from where Tony …

Nope. Nope, nope, nope. He’s not thinking about that. If he has to think about that, he’s going to have a legitimate breakdown, instead of the half-assed holding-it-together thing he’s doing now. He sits crossed-legged on his mattress while Tony packs a bag for him, sniffing the t-shirts and sweatpants laying strewn across the floor surreptitiously to check if they’re clean. Peter can’t remember right now the last time he did laundry, so he can’t give odds.

Then Tony’s locking the studio door behind them and ushering him down the stairs and into the back of a running car with a warm hand low on his back. Peter can’t remember being touched like that by Tony before, but it feels familiar and protective all the same.

When they arrive at the top floor of the tower, JARVIS greets them, and Tony nudges Peter towards the ensuite in one of the guest bedrooms, laying the bag at the foot of the bed and wiping a sweaty lock of hair out of Peter’s face before he goes.

“I’m thinking you could probably use some fuel,” he says. “Any requests for dinner?”

“Cheeseburgers?” Peter says, doing puppy dog eyes even though there’s no way they should work on a man his age. “Please?”

Tony’s responding smile is fond, so maybe he can still pull the puppy dog eyes off.

“You got it,” he says before leaving Peter alone in the doorway of the bathroom.

He always forgets how nice the showers at the tower are, with the water beating at your body from all angles, and the perfect temperature adjustment. He groans aloud when he steps inside and allows the streams to massage away the worst of the soreness in his shoulders and back.

When he finally does emerge, he follows the smell of beef and melted cheese out to the kitchen, where Tony has several Burger King bags spread out on the counter.

“Oh my god, boss, you won’t even believe,” Peter says through a mouthful after they’ve doled out the burgers and fries. “Joey’s was still open in alt New York. I got a number five with everything. It was transcendental.”

“Joey’s?” Tony says, snapping his fingers in the air trying to remember. “Wait, the place on 12th that closed down for health code violations?”

“The very same.”

“I still have very confusing dreams about their loaded chili dogs. I don’t even care what was in them.”

“Magic,” Peter says, accompanied by sparkle fingers. “Also, possibly actual dog, which is more morally difficult.”

“As long as you don’t think about it, right?”

“Exactly,” Peter agrees.

Tony grins, and Peter notices a spot of mustard at the corner of his beard. He reaches out to wipe it away, licking the stray condiment off the pad of his thumb without thinking about it. When he flicks his eyes back up to Tony’s face there’s something dark and hungry in his gaze, focused with laser-like precision on Peter’s mouth.

It makes Peter’s insides go wobbly, and he fumbles the burger in his left hand, leaving a smear of mayo and melted cheese down the front of his t-shirt. Fuck, that’s gonna be a bitch to get out.

Going for nonchalance, Peter picks up the pickle stuck the corner of the triangle on his “find x” t-shirt, and pops it in his mouth.

“Guess I’m still a little shaky,” he tells Tony, studiously avoiding the man’s eyes.

He wipes at his chest with a handful of paper napkins, and then slips off his stool.

“Gonna change,” he mutters. “Be right back.”

If Tony answers, Peter doesn’t catch it in his rush to remove himself from the room.

He’s able to breath a little easier once he’s out of the trajectory of Tony’s gaze, and he takes his time digging through his bag for another shirt and tossing the dirty one into the closet. He splashes cold water on his face and scrubs at it before looking himself over in the mirror.

It’s not exactly an impressive image, with the stubble encroaching on his chin and cheeks and the bags under his eyes heavy and dark. He needs to sleep. And probably eat something that isn’t fried. That’s what May would tell him to do. But. May’s not here.

It hits him in a way that it hasn’t in a long time. Sometimes, in the early days, he would forget. See a lady wearing something ridiculous while patrolling the upper West Side, or a cute cat sharing a rooftop with him, and reach for his phone to call her and tell her about it, to send her a photo. Then he would remember, with a fresh and piercing ache, that she wouldn’t be there on the other end of the line.

He’d seen her just a few hours ago – steely and fierce and the steadiest thing he’s ever known. All the good things in Peter stem from her and Ben. Now he’s back in a world without either of them, and even though he knows he couldn’t have stayed, he still feels like somehow he chose wrong. Because now there’s a world where there’s a May without a Peter, and Peter stuck here feeling achingly helpless and alone.

When he wanders back into the living room, leaden and feeling sorry for himself, Tony’s on the couch, feet tucked underneath him, with his glasses perched on the edge of his nose so he can read from the starkpad on his lap. Peter clears his throat, and Tony raises his face to him and gives him a soft smile.

“Hey Pete,” he says, slipping off the glasses and running a hand through already ruffled hair. “I was just finishing up a few things. You wanna watch a movie or something?”

Peter’s stomach flips again at the way the corners of his eyes crinkle. He knows it’s a mistake. It’s a big, big mistake. But he’s had a hell of a day – a hell of a week – and he wants that feeling back. The one he had when Tony was leading him to the car, a guiding hand on his back. It had felt like he could rest for once. Let someone else do the heavy lifting.

He sinks down onto the couch, his side pressed against Tony’s. Slowly, expecting protest or resistance, he lowers his head onto Tony’s lap and wraps a hand around one bare ankle, fingers brushing up under the hem of his pants against sparse leg hair.

“You pick,” he says, gnawing at his bottom lip nervously while he waits for some kind of reaction.

There’s a long beat of perfect stillness, then Tony lets out a little sigh, and his hand comes to rest on Peter’s head, burying his fingers deep in his hair and massaging.

“J, can we get a little Indiana Jones going, please?”

“My pleasure, sir,” JARVIS replies, crisply.

Peter absently watches as Dr. Jones dodges booby traps, steals a statute and runs from a giant boulder. All the while, Tony runs his fingers through Peter’s hair. It’s wrong, because it doesn’t mean what Tony wants it to mean. Peter can’t be that to him. But just for the night, he thinks, just for this one night, he can enjoy the comfort of having someone touch him. With affection. With care. With love.

Peter drifts on that feeling, his eyes slipping closed as Tony’s rough fingers stray from his hair to skim the shell of his ear, the pulse point at his throat. When he blinks awake, Indy is offering Marion his arm, and the ark is getting packed away in an anonymous box.

He grumbles sleepily and rolls his head to press his face into Tony’s stomach, feels the vibrations of the other man’s chuckle along the planes of his abdomen.

“C’mon, Pete,” Tony says. “Bedtime.”

He nudges at Peter’s shoulders and helps him rise to his feet without stumbling too much. He hooks an arm around Peter’s waist and guides him toward the guest room.

When they get to the door, though, he stops. Peter lets his shoulders slump so that they’re almost face to face.

“Thanks, boss,” he rasps. “Sorry I fell asleep.”

“Long day,” Tony says, with a shrug. “It’s understandable.”

Then he reaches out a hand and cups Peter’s cheek.

He sees it coming, but Peter can’t quite pull together the wherewithal to pull away when Tony kisses him. It’s a soft press. Peter feels just the slightest flicker of a tongue at the seam of his lips, and the scratch of Tony’s beard against his chin. Then he pulls back, hand lingering for just a moment longer on Peter’s face, thumb rubbing at the stubbly edge of his jaw before withdrawing completely.

Tony stuffs his hands into his pockets, and Peter can’t help the breathless thought that it’s so he can resist the temptation to keep touching him.

“Sweet dreams, sweetheart,” he says, voice low and full of something Peter can’t quite name.

Peter watches as he turns on a heel and strolls away down the hallway.

“’Night …” he calls back, quiet and delayed.

When Tony turns the corner, Peter drifts into his room and allows himself to fall face-first into the plush mattress with a muffled groan. He turns onto his back and raises his hand to his lips.

Peter falls asleep like that, with the feel of Tony’s kiss lingering like a brand, unsure if that’s good or bad.

*

The next time Tony kisses him, they’re in the lab together.

There’s a problem with the nanites in the bleeding edge armor Tony’s trying to develop. They’ll move under Tony’s command to form the armor, but they won’t retract when he’s done with them. He calls Peter in to help because, while Tony’s a much better engineer than he’ll ever be, Peter is by far the superior coder.

Peter sheepishly pulls out his own reading glasses and goes through the code on one of the holoscreens while Tony complains about being trapped in the armor. His long-suffering sighs, mechanized through the suit’s voice modulator, are especially hilarious.

“I’m starving,” Iron Man moans. “How long is this gonna take, because I’m dying for a sandwich or something.”

He’s reclined in one of the lab’s wheelie chairs, one leg crossed over the other in a relaxed pose that’s in complete opposition to the armor he wears.

“Well boss,” Peter says, spotting a wonky line and adding a fix. “This is why we don’t test things on ourselves. Remember us having that conversation? After you blasted yourself through a re-enforced concrete wall?”

“I remember you telling me that to test your web shooters you threw yourself off a ten-story building,” Tony replies. “So like, glass houses and stones and shit, Spiderling.”

Peter glares at him, but keeps typing. He had been fifteen at the time, and stupid, and also _reasonably_ sure that a 10-story fall would do him minimal damage.

“Ooh!” Tony snaps his metal fingers at Peter, the gold titanium alloy clinking. Something about the sound makes Peter’s spidey senses tingle unpleasantly under his skin.

“Don’t do that,” he says, unnecessarily sharp. “I’m not a puppy.”

“I was just gonna say,” Tony replies, ignoring Peter’s sniping. “That I’ve decided I want sushi after you figure this out.”

Peter could play modest and correct him with an “If,” but he’s pretty sure he’s already …

He presses enter, and the helmet portion of the suit slowly retracts back into the nanite casing on Tony’s chest.

“Freedom!” Tony cries, hopping up from the chair and pumping his fist.

He stomps over to Peter with a massive grin, and wraps a metal-covered hand around the back of his neck. Tony’s taller than Peter like this, with the added inches of the Iron Man armor. It’s strange to look up into his face. It reminds Peter of being 16 again, meeting his favorite super hero for the first time and being in total awe.

“You,” Tony says. “Are a genius.”

Then he tugs to pull Peter in for a kiss, and Peter panics. He moves his face to the side, so that Tony gets cheek instead of lips.

It’s so awkward and terrible, the way he can sense Tony’s body tensing up, and feel the heat surging through his own cheeks.

“So,” he says, pulling away and patting Tony on one arm, eyes focused firmly over the man’s shoulder. “Sushi, huh?”

The thing is, Peter’s 36 years old. He’s way, way too old for a sexual identity crisis. That’s a younger man’s game.

Of course he cares about Tony. They’re best friends. They’re partners. They’re each others … People. And of course he knows that, objectively, Tony is an attractive man. He’s secure enough in his masculinity to admit that. The confidence. The cocky smile. The arms… It’s a good package, and Peter would have to be blind not to notice that, ok?

It’s just not the package for him. Besides, even if he were _inclined_ in that direction, Peter knows what he wants. He’s been on his grand adventure. He’s had his epiphany. He wants to make things right with MJ. He wants to build a family with her. Just like she always wanted. He can be what she wants again. He knows he can.

So he takes the best approach he can think of, which naturally is one of avoidance. He keeps the physical distance between Tony and himself as much as he can without interrupting their routine. He does live with the man now, after all.

He shies away from hugs and back pats. Mornings making breakfast become a carefully coordinated dance where Peter, more than once, finds himself singing “Can’t Touch This” in his head as he slides out of Tony’s path to the refrigerator with milk in tow.

He even manages to convince himself that Tony doesn’t notice until it becomes perfectly clear how untrue that is.

Peter’s lazed out in the living room one day, using his enhanced spidey senses for their intended purpose – throwing cheese puffs up into the air and catching them in his mouth – when Tony comes into the room. Then Peter sits up on the couch and wipes the orange cheese powder off on his sweatpants.

Tony’s dressed in a chunky blue sweater, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and Peter kind of hates how his eyes linger on the taut lines of those forearms, but he looks anyway.

“What’s up, boss?”

“Can we …” Tony starts, and then stops himself, shaking his head and scratching at his jaw. “I’d like to talk about what’s happening here.”

He finishes by gesturing meaningfully between the two of them.

_Shit,_ Peter thinks. _Fucking shit._

His entire body tenses.

“Can we maybe not?” he replies, feeling his throat closing in. Is he having a panic attack? Is that what this is?

“Really wish that was an option, Pete,” Tony says, approaching Peter’s spot on the couch slowly, like he’s some animal that’s going to spook and run away.

To be fair, the only thing preventing Peter from doing just that is his legs stubbornly refusing to move. Stupid legs.

“Look,” Tony’s saying. “I can’t keep walking around the apartment thinking I’m making you uncomfortable just with my presence. So if I did something specific …”

“I’d really rather not …” Peter says weakly.

Tony forges ahead.

“I realize I should have asked before I kissed you,” he says. “That was my bad. I changed this dynamic in our relationship, and I didn’t ask you if you wanted that. It was a dick move. Ok? I’m admitting that. But I was just so worried about you, and it made me realize – “

“Oh my God.”

The words burst out of Peter too loud and too forceful. He sounds angry, when really he’s just desperate to make this stop. He feels like there are literal spiders under his skin, which isn’t what Spider-Man is supposed to mean at all.

“This,” Peter says. “This is why the dinosaurs are extinct. Right here. They chose to die rather than evolve to the point where they had to talk about their feelings.”

He buries his fingers in his hair and tugs in frustration. He’s so bad at this. He’s always been so bad at this, and he’s not prepared for it now. His head is not in the right place at all.

Tony’s jaw snaps shut with an audible click at Peter’s words. He looks so hurt that Peter can hardly take it. He stands to face Tony, still not sure what he can say to make this better.

“I liked the kissing,” he says, partly to wipe that terrible expression off Tony’s face, and partly because, well, it’s true. They made him feel safe, and cared for, and tingly and … _Stop. Stop that right now._ “I just can’t … And I didn’t even think you. You know. With guys. It’s just a lot. There’s a lot.”

Slowly, so slowly, Tony’s face melts into a softer expression, his mouth tipped up in a way that Peter can’t help but question.

“What?” he asks. “I say something funny?”

Tony shakes his head.

“No, it’s just, I think you might be the only person in my entire acquaintance who hasn’t googled me. It’s kind of charming, actually.”

Peter sees the segue for the reprieve it is. Tony’s letting him get away with it, for now. Peter makes his retreat before the man can change his mind.

“I got, um, cultures,” he says. “I got cultures in the lab so I should go.”

“Right,” Tony says with a nod. He’s smiling, but this time it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Can’t leave those cultures unsupervised for too long.”

*

Peter googles Tony Stark. Of course he does. It’s late at night, after a mostly uneventful patrol, and he’s at the sparse desk in the guest room. He doesn’t use it for much of anything, keeping most of his work confined to the lab. But he’s got a computer there, and the temptation is too great.

He finds the video Tony was alluding to high up in the results, clicking on it with a mixture of interest and fear.

By the fuzzy quality of the recording, Peter can tell it’s a home video, probably made sometime in the mid-90s.

When a naked Tony walks into frame, Peter almost swallows his tongue. He tries his best to keep his eyes at waist level or above, but every now and then they guiltily skitter lower.

He’s seen Tony’s shirtless before, in the locker room after training, and that one time Tony caught his wife-beater on fire in the lab and had to rip it from his own body. But that had all been post-Afghanistan. There are no scars from that encounter now, no arc reactor glowing in the center of his chest.

And while there’s no denying that this version of Tony is young, beautiful, and gorgeously toned, Peter can’t help the fleeting thought that he prefers his own version, complete with its scars and its history. Not that Tony is his. Just. Yeah.

He doesn’t recognize the other man in the video, a muscly blonde that Peter wouldn’t think of as Tony’s type. But then he remembers some of the stories he’s heard from Rhodey about Tony’s youth, and realizes that, once upon a time, Tony’s type was, apparently, everybody.

Peter can feel the sweat popping out on his forehead as he watches the two men making out on the bed, the camera positioned somewhere on the side to capture them in profile.

It’s not any kind of professional job, probably a spur of the moment decision to record themselves. Neither even make much of a nod to the camera. The blonde kisses Tony sloppy and aggressive, and Peter can tell by the tension in Tony’s face that it isn’t exactly what he’s into, but he doesn’t say anything.

Peter should stop watching. Like, now. He’s unsure how he’ll ever be able to look Tony in the eye again as it is. His hand hovers over the cursor pad to close the video, but he doesn’t make a move. Instead he watches helplessly as the man’s hands roam Tony’s body, lower and lower.

_This is fine_ , Peter tells himself. It’s fine. He’s seen things like this before. It’s no different, really, than when Wade used to bring those videotapes over during movie nights when Peter was an undergrad. Those had usually involved at least one woman. But mostly men. Because Wade had put them on as a joke. Just a joke. To tease a much younger Peter, who he always said was too repressed. Except that they never turned them off after the initial laughter had died down. And then …

Oh. _Oh_. Peter is too old for a sexual identity crisis. Apparently, he should have had one years ago. Because, it belated occurs to him, watching gay porn with his best friend isn’t exactly the straightest thing anyone’s ever done. Neither is letting said friend provide a helping hand during the proceedings. And feeling incapable of looking away from Tony Stark’s sex tape isn’t better.

The realization is going to be a doozy to deal with, but Peter can’t be bothered to do it right now. He’s too distracted by the movements in the video. He watches transfixed, not bothering anymore to pretend to keep his eyes at a respectful level.

He hungrily devours the way Tony’s hips twitch as his partner thrusts, how the muscles of his thighs and calves glisten with sweat and strain from effort as they rock in time with the other man.

Tony wraps his legs around his partner’s back, pulling him in deeper, and Peter reaches down to find himself achingly hard. Their movements become more frenzied, and the blonde reaches down to place a meaty hand in the center of Tony’s chest, forceful and restraining.

When Tony throws his head back and paints his own stomach white on screen, Peter follows just a few seconds later with a muffled whine. The blonde doesn’t seem to be quite done, but Peter’s had enough. He clicks off the video and slumps back in his chair, closing his eyes and breathing heavily.

He’ll unpack what it all means in the morning. Right now, his brain is too busy floating high on endorphins to care. He wipes himself off with his t-shirt, undresses and flops into bed. Within a minute he’s snoring softly directly into his pillow.

In the golden light of morning, Peter finds his bisexual awakening doesn’t bother him as much as he anticipated. He’s a disaster in almost all other areas of his life, after all. Why not be a bisexual disaster as well? It fits his theme, really.

Besides, it’s not like it will make much difference to his life. He’s already decided he wants to fix things with MJ, and he’s holding true to that.

Peter just wants his life to be easy again. Well, easier. Simpler. He wants MJ, and a family, and he doesn’t want to have to think about harboring feelings for Tony, or how complicated that makes, well, everything.

He has to figure out how to break it to Tony without it becoming a thing that could damage them. Peter won’t admit the possibility of losing Tony. He can’t do that. So he has to thread this needle in his own way. In the way that involves minimal talking about _how we feel_ and maximum _getting the fuck on with things._

What he does … Well, he probably could have come up with something more delicate, but he doesn’t take the time. _Bisexual disaster,_ a voice in the back of his mind singsongs, but he shoos it away like a wayward pigeon.

He finds Tony on the terrace, drinking his coffee and reading the headlines on a holoscreen popping out of his watch.

“Hey,” Peter greets, when he slides the glass door open.

“Morning, Pete,” Tony greets, still scrolling. “Coffee’s on the table if that’s what you’re after.”

“I, uh, I actually wanted to ask for your help with something. I’m kind of at a loss.”

Tony clicks a button on his watch, and the newsfeed dissipates into thin air. He looks at Peter with eyes full of concern.

“Anything,” he says. “Name it.”

Ok, that. That makes Peter feel like an actual piece of shit. He powers right through it, though.

“I need help finding a nice suit,” he says, ignoring the way Tony’s lips tip up appealingly.

“For MJ,” he clarifies in a hurry. “Well, not … Not for her. For me, for her. You understand? I want to try and fix things with MJ. We broke up because of the kids thing, right? But while I was away, I realized. I think I’m ready to, you know, start a family. I want to make it right. And it would be nice to make a good impression. Look a little less me. So … suit. Yes?”

Peter watches it happen like it’s a slow-motion car crash. Like it’s a runaway bus that he’s not going to make it in time to stop.

All of the emotion drains slowly out of Tony’s face until it’s a very careful blank. He takes three long breaths in and lets three long breaths out. When he speaks, it’s like they’re discussing the weather.

“I’ll make a call to my tailor,” he says. “Tomorrow afternoon work ok for you?”

“Yeah,” Peter croaks. “Yeah, that’s … Great.”

Tony drains his coffee, firms his lips, and nods once, looking down at the concrete. He walks to the door, and Peter sees him make a move to pat him on the back, and then hastily abort that impulse, rushing inside.

When he’s gone, Peter collapses into one of the plush lounge chairs by the railing and buries his head in his hands.

He’s an asshole. Peter’s never been this fucking mean to anyone in his entire life. All because he didn’t feel brave enough to have an actual conversation. _Fuck._

The worst part, though, is that his brain immediately tries to justify it. Because it’s proof, isn’t it? That he and Tony aren’t meant to be together? MJ would never let him get away with this level of shit, would never silently accept the kind of passive-aggressive move he just pulled. There would be yelling and consequences. Never, never silent acceptance.

Peter thinks that, deep down, he needs someone like that to keep him on track. The way Tony cares for Peter is too selfless, too soft. God, the way he’d looked at Peter and said “Anything.” He really meant it, and it terrifies Peter. That kind of love is too much. He knows he would wreck it in no time. Maybe he already has.

It doesn’t matter, Peter tells himself. Tony will forgive him because he always does, and if he’s very lucky MJ will let him come home. Order restored. Done and dusted.

He ignores the hollow feeling that remains in his chest at the thought, pushing himself to his feet with a heavy sigh. Time to get on with his day.

*

The store that Tony takes Peter to the next day is a little hole-in-the-wall place that he never would have looked twice at, halfway down a back alley in the garment district in midtown. There’s not even a proper store sign, just the word “Menswear” in green script on the window, picked out in gold.

“You sure about this place?” Peter asks.

“What, you’re questioning my fashion choices now, creepy crawly?” Tony asks. 

“I would never,” Peter replies. “This just isn’t your usual style.”

The banter is a good sign, he thinks. There’s still an undercurrent of tension there between them, but at least they’re back to normal antics on the surface.

“In fact, it is the essence of my usual style,” Tony says. “Giuseppe has been dressing me since my first cocktail party. Also, as it happens, my first cocktail.”

“How old?” Peter asks, curiously. It’s rare he gets childhood stories from Tony. He gets the impression that there aren’t a lot of happy memories to recount.

“Nine.”

“Hmm …” Peter muses, looking him up and down. “I would guess Negroni. Stolen from your mother while she was distracted playing hostess.”

“Gin martini,” Tony counters. “Pinched from right underneath my father’s nose after he was too sozzled to notice.”

Peter snorts in disbelief.

“Your first drink was a gin martini?”

“Darling,” Tony replies with a shake of his head. “I’m Milanese. My first drink was a glass of chianti at Christmas dinner when I was four. The martini was just my first cocktail.”

“Important distinction.”

“I gun-shotted it like a little idiot and threw up in one of my mother’s potted plants,” Tony says as he pushes the door open with a jingle of bells. “Giuseppe!”

A tiny man with white hair and a carefully manicured mustache runs out of the back room the second time that Tony bellows the name. He’s in dress pants, a crisp white button-up and vest, sleeves rolled to his elbows and kept back with braces.

“Antonio!” he cries excitedly, embracing Tony warmly then taking his face in his hands and turning it this way and that.

They speak for a few minutes in a flurry of Italian that makes Peter’s eyes go wide, and sends a jolt of heat down his spine. He’s heard Tony speak Italian only on rare occasions, and even then it’s usually just a few words to a waiter to show off. It’s something else entirely to see him like this, totally engaged, lilting tones flowing from him and minutely altering his body language to something more fluid.

He only has a few minutes to appreciate it before he’s being pulled forward and presented.

“Giuseppe, this is Peter,” Tony says. “Peter, this is Giuseppe Varacio, my tailor.”

“Nice to meet you,” Peter says, wiping a hand on his jeans and then holding it out to the man. “I’m—”

“He knows who you are,” Tony says as they shake hands.

“A pleasure,” the little man says, leading Peter over to a box set up in front of a trio of mirrors. “Strip.”

Well, right down to it then, huh? Peter nervously sheds all of his clothes except his boxers and socks. He didn’t think about this part of the process, so he’s wearing his once red, faded to pink, winking Deadpool boxers, and he’s not sure his socks match. It’s hard to tell anymore. Most of them have turned a similar shade of gray.

The tailor comes at him with a blue measuring tape, cracked with age, jimmying him into position when needed. He doesn’t talk to Peter much beyond simple instructions. “Arms up.” “Back straight.” He does, however, keep up a pretty steady stream of conversation with Tony, seated behind them in a green leather chair, ankle crossed over one knee and flipping through a 10-year-old issue of GQ.

Peter, for his part, follows instructions and attempts to avoid looking directly in the mirrors surrounding him The store is nice, old-fashioned in style with mahogany paneling and deep forest green paint on the walls. It smells of leather, probably from the wall full of shining dress shoes in the corner, as well as lemon oil.

Very few actual pieces of clothing are on display – a selection of silk ties on a table near the counter, a board with samples for pocket squares. It’s a place where it’s understood that things will be made to order.

He shifts uncomfortably on the box while Giuseppe measures his inseam. He realizes logically that there’s not a huge difference between the way his body’s displayed in the clinging fabric of his spidey suit, and what’s happening now, but it feels different. More vulnerable.

He hates his knobby knees, his doughy stomach, the way the former sharp definition of his chest has gone soft. It makes him feel all the failures of recent years that much more acutely. _Nothing to see here, folks,_ he thinks to himself.

But while avoiding looking at himself, his eyes catch on Tony in the reflection, watching him intently. There’s heat in the gaze that travels slowly up his body. Heat and hunger. Peter feels it like a lance of fire deep in his gut. Their eyes lock in the mirror and its unbearable. Is Peter sweating? He might be sweating. _Jesus._

Seemingly out of options for where to train his eyes, he closes them and takes shaky breaths to try to center himself. After an eternity, Giuseppe seems confident in his measurements, and starts bringing out actual clothes for Peter to try on. There’s more variety than Peter ever imagined available for suits. Double breasted, high-collared, skinny-legged, one monstrosity in mustard yellow that will haunt him for a while.

Giuseppe hums in distress when Peter slips the jacket on.

“Maybe,” he offers after the yellow nightmare. “You are more traditional?”

“Yes,” Peter confirms.

The next suit he brings out is a dark navy two-button number, more like what Peter had been expecting. The material is much softer and lighter than he ever would have figured and the lines are good in a way that Peter doesn’t really have the vocabulary for. He stands up a little straighter, and Giuseppe smiles and starts to pin fabric back to adjust the fit.

“Cosa ne pensi?” he throws back at Tony.

Peter watches in the mirror as the other man uncrosses his legs, stands, and approaches them, shooting the cuffs of his own suit while he does. When Peter swallows, his throat clicks, dry and protesting.

“It’s good,” Tony says, standing just behind Peter’s shoulder and examining.

He barely stifles the sharp inhale of breath that comes when Tony’s hands land on his shoulders, smoothing the fabric of the suit jacket from there, down his back, to the knobs of his shoulder blades. How is it, Peter wonders, that his touch can leave a trail of fire across Peter’s skin, and somehow still be comforting?

“Maybe a dove gray, instead of the navy,” Tony suggests. “Something less somber. He’s wooing a girl, not attending a funeral.”

The words make Peter’s stomach knot with guilt, but Tony’s hands linger on his back, and it’s a confusing mix of emotions. He feels like his brain has been put through a salad spinner.

“Si,” Giuseppe agrees. “And a bowtie …”

He indicates the table of multi-colored silk.

“No tie,” Tony insists, with a shake of his head. His hand comes up to undo the top button of the dress shirt Peter’s wearing, fingertips briefly brushing along the swell of his Adam’s apple.

Their eyes meet again in the mirror, and he gives Peter a quick wink.

“Still want to look a little like yourself, yeah?”

“Y-yeah,” Peter whispers back. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

He holds Peter’s gaze for another long moment, and then turns away toward the tailor.

“You can make that a rush order, right G?” he says.

“Of course, Antonio,” he says. “No problem. I will have it sent over tomorrow.”

He starts to remove Peter’s jacket.

“Um,” Peter says, wondering if he should mention he’s capable of taking off his own clothes. “How much is that gonna cost?”

Why is he only now considering that he probably can’t afford the type of suit Tony would help him pick out? He should have just gone to Macy’s. _Shit._ Maybe Giuseppe will take payment in installments? For the rest of Peter’s life? So, hey, exactly like his student loans. When he thinks about it in that context, it’s not so bad.

“Put it on my tab,” Tony interrupts before the tailor can answer.

“No,” Peter protests. “No, really, boss. You don’t need to do that.”

“Don’t insult me, Pete,” Tony insists, and his tone is mostly joking, but there’s an undercurrent of steel there that Peter doesn’t want to unpack.

He nods, feeling guilty and shitty all over again, but it’s not like his protest is more than token anyway. He definitely cannot afford this suit.

Tony gives him one last hearty pat on the shoulder at his acceptance, then pulls Giuseppe away to handle business while Peter puts the rest of his clothes back on.

When they walk back out into the sunlight, Tony slips on his tinted glasses and gives Peter a smile. This time, though, it’s one of his networking smiles. Peter’s seen him use the same one on Secretary Ross right before undercutting one of the man’s demands.

The juxtaposition between that and the way Tony had looked at him just minutes ago makes him feel whiplashed. He doesn’t immediately catch the thread of the conversation.

“What?” he asks, shaking his confusion off.

“I asked if you had time for lunch,” Tony says.

A week ago, Peter wouldn’t have hesitated to say yes. But now he just needs to get away from the way Tony makes his head feel. It’s too confusing. He needs to be centering himself instead, focusing on tomorrow and winning back his wife. He’d rather think about anything, really, than the mixed-up emotions that Tony elicits.

Things will get back to normal after he settles things with MJ, he’s sure of it. They’ll settle back into being just friends. And that’s what Peter wants. It is.

He makes his excuses to Tony and they head off in different directions, Tony back to the tower, Peter up a nearby building to change and then out on a patrol. It feels good to web up a mugger and a would-be purse thief. Simple. Peter, after all, is a simple man.

*

The suit arrives the next morning, delivered by a courier in a black garment bag. When Peter puts it on, he realizes it’s now the nicest thing he owns besides the spidey suit. It fits like it was sewn onto his body, accentuating his shoulders, and complimenting his coloring.

He shaves and spends too much time in front of the mirror running pomade through his hair to make it behave. Then he’s ready to go.

He asks JARVIS where Tony is, wanting the coast to be clear before he heads out. He’s not sure he can take another mind-turning altercation with the man before he does this. He’s jumbled-up enough as it is.

When he’s told that Mr. Stark is in the lab, he makes a break for the elevator bank and waits impatiently for it to arrive. But when it does, a bleary-eyed Tony spills out of the doors, almost careening directly into Peter.

_Fucking JARVIS_. Peter discreetly raises a middle finger in the direction of one of the AI’s sensors in the ceiling. 

“Pete!” Tony cries with the loopy joyousness borne only from an epic lab binge. “You’re not going to the lab are you? Because it’s a little charred at the moment. But don’t worry. Dum-E’s cleaning it up. He’ll take care of everything.”

“No, I’m going out,” Peter answers. “Wait, why are things charred?”

He grabs Tony by the arms to stop him and looks him over. His eyebrows are a little singed, and there are a few minor holes burned through his Iron Maiden t-shirt, but that looks to be the extent of the damage.

“Just a little thruster issue,” Tony says, with a giggle. He’s moved into the loopy phase of exhaustion, clearly.

“OK, I think you need to go to bed,” Peter tells him. “No more fires. JARVIS?”

“I shall endeavor to prevent further pyrotechnics, Mr. Parker,” the AI intones, and Peter swears it’s got an attitude. Everything Tony makes has a little snark in it.

“Thank you,” Peter grits out.

“Hey,” Tony says, ignoring Peter’s conversation with JARVIS and taking note of how Peter is dressed. “So today’s the big day. Big, big day.”

“It’s a day,” Peter allows. “Who knows how big it’s gonna be.”

“What’s she gonna do,” Tony says confidently. “Say no to Peter Parker?”

Peter sighs, rubs at his temples.

“Plenty of people have.”

“Idiots,” Tony says softly, petting the lapel of Peter’s jacket. “They were idiots. Ms. Watson is a clever girl.”

“Thanks, boss,” Peter says, softly, directing his eyes down at his shoes.

This is why he wanted to avoid Tony. Suddenly everything feels weighted ad sad.

Slowly, Tony pulls his fingers away from Peter’s lapels. He takes a few halting steps backward down the hallway.

“Good luck, Pete,” he says, wandering away. “Oh, and bring flowers. It’s a nice gesture. Shows forethought.”

When he’s gone, babbling to JARVIS about adjustments to a formula, Peter presses the call button on the elevator again and heads out.

MJ lives in Manhattan now, not Queens. It’s an apartment in a stately brownstone that’s been subdivided into lofts. It’s very her, and Peter feels out of place just standing on the sidewalk. A lady walking her toy poodle on the other side of the street is giving him the evil eye.

He did get flowers from one of the street vendors on the walk over, but they’re drooping now. Still, they aren’t going to get any better with him just standing here. Peter straightens his shoulders from their slump. He shakes the bouquet a little, trying to get them to perk up, and readjusts his collar. Then he presses gently on the sensor of the web shooter around his wrist to ring the buzzer.

Peter waits for what feels like an eternity, but is probably only a couple minutes before the door of the brownstone swings open, and there she is. His girl.

He’s been in love with Mary Jane Watson since he was 15, and she’s still just as beautiful now as she was then – red curls falling into her face, freckles dotted across her nose, blue eyes wide and fixed on him with a soft affection.

“Hey there, Tiger,” she says, with just a hint of a smile on her face. “Long time, no see.”

It used to feel like magic when she looked at him. It used to feel like something singing in his blood to be noticed by her, to be pulled into the orbit of her attention. Now. Now it’s just … Nice. It’s nice.

The last time they spoke face-to-face they had both been crying, and angry, and hurt. It had been terrible. This is better. No tears, no shouting. And there’s a nostalgia to being there on her stoop, looking up into her always beautiful face.

Still, it feels strangely empty, compared to the emotions that used to flood his chest every time their eyes met. Maybe he’s coming down with something.

MJ invites him inside. She’s kept the same clean, modern aesthetic she gave the apartment they shared together, but added a few more feminine touches. The couch is new, a soft blue velvet, and there’s a giant green vase of daisies in the entryway that he doesn’t recognize. It all feels just as disorienting as being in that other reality had felt. Things are subtly off from what he expects, and the cumulative effect is jarring. Their old red tea kettle is on a different burner in the kitchen, the table cloth on the dining table is a geometric pink and green pattern he’s never seen before.

He accepts when she offers him a mug of steaming coffee – no sugar and just a splash of cream, just like he likes – and they spend a pleasant half hour catching up on what they’ve missed. He tells her the funnier parts of his trip through the multi-verse, and she tells him that she’s working with a designer friend on a custom collection.

It’s not that he doesn’t miss her. Of course he misses her. He loves her. Will always love her. But looking across the kitchen table from her, the feeling doesn’t have the urgency it used to have. It’s like a wound that’s healed over with scar tissue. It still hurts if you prod at it, but it’s just a ghost of the pain you used to feel.

Peter’s brain stutters like an old engine as he processes this new information, tries to figure out what it all means.

“… So we might go out to LA this spring to talk with some retail buyers,” she’s saying when Peter reaches out and places his hand over hers, so small compared to his own.

MJ gives him a funny look, but allows the touch.

“What is it, Peter?” she prompts. “Are you doing ok? Really?”

Peter flashes her a chagrined smile.

“It was never really about having kids, was it?” he asks.

MJ wrinkles her nose at him, clearly a little taken aback by the change of subject. She sighs.

“No, Peter,” she says. “I don’t think it really was. We, um, we weren’t very good for each other in the end there, were we? I was mean, and you. You …”

“I stopped trying,” he says. “I put everything on you after … I’m really sorry about that, you know.”

MJ bites at her lower lip, looks down at their hands.

“It’s good to hear you say that,” she says. “I am too. And I do miss you, Tiger. I’d really like us to be friends.”

They talk for another hour, and when they say goodbye, she hugs him. It’s a quick embrace, but it’s nice to breathe in her lemon verbena scent and to brush a hand over her silky hair.

When Peter walks away, he’s suffused with a light, empty feeling. He doesn’t even have the urge to look back.

It’s disorienting. MJ used to feel like home to him, and he never really stopped thinking of her that way even after they broke up. She was the red arrow on his compass, always pointing north.

Now, though. Now, home is somewhere different. Home is _someone_ different. Peter stops dead on the sidewalk. How? How with it all right there under his nose did he manage to fuck it all up?

It’s Tony. It’s been Tony for so long. He took Peter home, and he took care of him, and he kissed him soft, and slow and perfect. Peter has been such an idiot thinking he only allowed those things, that he didn’t need them like air.

He wants to slap himself when he thinks of how easy and perfect it all could have been, if only he’d realized just a little bit sooner. If he had just kissed Tony back after that first time, and known what it meant, and kept on kissing him until they were so entangled there would be no unsnarling their lives from one another.

Instead, Peter ruined it. He hurt Tony – shut him out pushed him away – and now he’s not sure he’ll be able to salvage things. Oh, he knows Tony will always be there for him. Even now, there’s no doubt about that. But will he ever trust Peter enough again to let them be more to each other?

The thought weighs on Peter as he walks back to the tower. He doesn’t bother with a taxi or the subway because he knows he needs time to get his head in order. The noise of New York – the honking horns, the snippets of conversation, the hiss of the subway grates – all congeal together into a white noise that, for him, is the perfect meditative background.

Peter thinks, he walks. It grows dark. The moon comes out, full and bright but made dull by streetlights. He walks with a plodding pace until he reaches the foot of the tower and cranes his neck up that massive chrome edifice.

JARVIS is sharp with him when he enters the elevator and asks to be taken up. His “Yes, Mr. Parker,” feels clipped and angry. But maybe Peter is just projecting his own guilt.

In the penthouse, most of the lights are off, which is unusual. Normally, Tony keeps the place well-lit, but now there’s just the one lamp over by the sofa on, Tony’s features illuminated in its yellow glow as he sips a few fingers of whiskey and stares out a bank of windows. The sight is so captivating – the way his skin gleams gold in the light, the shadows that form beneath his eyes and cheekbones – that Peter doesn’t notice the bulky shadow in his path until he’s stumbling over it, and breaking the silence of the room with a muttered curse. Why is his gym bag in the hallway?

At the noise, Tony turns his head, eyebrows arching in surprise when he sees Peter.

“You’re back early,” he says, with a voice that crackles like a fire from the burn of the whiskey. “How was the lovely Ms. Watson?”

Peter stares dumbly back at him, taking him in. He hasn’t changed from his lab attire. His hair is mussed, eyes dark and glassy from a couple drinks, and there’s a white bandage around the knuckles of his right hand. Lab accident, maybe? In the dark, the soft blue glow of the arc reactor is more visible than usual under his shirt.

Even looking like he could use a week of sleep, and enough green juice to fill a swimming pool, he’s an arresting figure.

“Good,” he finally manages to stammer out, swallowing down the raw desire that rises up in his throat. “MJ’s doing well. It was good to see her.”

“I packed up your stuff,” Tony says, gesturing with his glass to the bag Peter stumbled over. “Think I got everything.”

Peter’s stomach drops. He somehow wasn’t expecting that. He takes a few steps forward into the room so he can study Tony’s face more intently. He needs details now, not atmospherics.

“You kicking me out, boss?” he asks, as lightly as he can manage. “I thought we got on pretty well. Was it the dirty socks that tipped the scale? Because honestly, that’s understandable.”

“Not kicking you out,” Tony says, his features contorting in a grimace before they smooth out. “I assumed you would be moving back home. You know. With your wife.”

The word feels like a kick to the gut, even if Tony does manage to keep any acrimony out of it.

“Ex-wife,” Peter clarifies, rubbing nervously at the back of his neck. He really should have thought more about how this was going to go. “For good, now.”

“She turned you down?” Tony asks, incredulously. He finally sets his drink down. “Shit I … I’m sorry.”

Peter’s shaking his head before he can eve finish offering condolences.

“Don’t be,” he says. “Really. This is for the best. We both know it. I can be a little slow on the uptake, but I usually get there eventually.”

It’s clear that Tony wants to ask questions. His eyebrows do a little jump, and he tilts his head to one side. A part of Peter hopes he will ask, put his feet to the fire and force him to talk.

It’s the first time in a long time that he’s actually wanted to talk about how he’s feeling. Peter wants to kneel at Tony’s feet, and take his hand, and tell him everything. How he was clinging to the familiar with MJ, but he doesn’t want to do that anymore. He’s ready to reach for something more.

He’d like to just pull him in for a kiss, and start the new part of their lives together right here and right now. Peter thinks Tony might let him get away with that. But he wouldn’t trust it. He’d always be waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Peter to change his mind again.

That’s not fair to either of them. So instead he’s got to take the long, slow road. He can’t just tell Tony he loves him. He’s got to prove it. He’s got to make him believe, one day at a time.

They’re both holding themselves back, treating the connection between them as something fragile. Maybe it is right now. And maybe that’s ok.

Peter shucks his jacket off, throws it over the back of the sofa and sits down beside Tony, close enough to feel his body heat radiating out, but not close enough to touch.

“Hey,” he says, turning his head toward Tony. “You wanna get shit-faced and mock Kingdom the Crystal Skull?”

Tony just stares at him for a long moment, then he smirks and rolls his eyes.

“Fuck, yes I do,” he says.

Tony pulls the bottle he’s been pouring from out from behind a cushion and offers it up to Peter while JARVIS queues up the movie. They pass the whiskey back and forth and complain about bad dialogue, and Cate Blanchett’s Russian accent, and fucking _aliens_ , man.

Whether from the affects of the alcohol, or just their own brand of magnetism, their bodies tip towards each other over the course of the film, moving closer and closer together until Tony’s feet are tucked up under Peter’s thigh, and Peter’s arm is thrown over the back of the sofa, just a hair’s breadth from Tony’s shoulders.

Somewhere in between the unrealistic quick sand and the ancient temple, Tony slumps down until his head is resting on Peter’s shoulder, and by the time Indy and Marion are exchanging vows, he’s snoring softly, rustling Peter’s hair with every exhale.

In the dual glows of the reactor and the movie screen, Peter watches Tony’s muscles twitch subtly as he sleeps and lets himself feel a little lost and a little terrified of how big the thing is in his chest that pulls him toward the man. _It’s too much_ , he thinks. _Too much to carry, too much to hold._

Then Tony grumbles in his sleep, rolls his face into Peter’s shoulder, and the panic settles. Peter leans down to place a whisper-light kiss on Tony’s forehead and shuffles back against the cushions, pulling him in tighter. He closes his eyes and lets the steady rise and fall of Tony’s breathing lull him to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Ya'll, I have so many WIPs that I should be working on, but instead I decided to write more of this. What can I say? These two just invaded my head and kept yapping until I wrote more for them.
> 
> It's very specific and niche, but I so appreciate everyone who said nice things about the first part of this series, and I hope you enjoy this one as well. 
> 
> I'm also planning on wrapping the series up with a third part that I hope will be coming soon. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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